It's Too Cold Outside
by prodigaldaughter13
Summary: Sherlock has no qualms about who she is; addict, callgirl, freak, she's all these and more. But when she finds an unlikely friend in Johanna Watson, things begin to change. She is forced to clean up her act, and when Jim Moriarty sees his highest money-maker slipping away, he makes it his business to remove this good influence from Sherlock's life. (Genderbent AU)
1. Tried to Swim to Stay Afloat

It was snowing. Sherlock looked up and sighed, watching the flakes drift down. After a moment of staring she flicked her dark curls away from her face and stepped into the club. She shed her raincoat, leaving it in the coatroom before stopping briefly in the powder room to ensure the falling snow hadn't ruined her makeup. It hadn't, thankfully; the entire process of applying makeup was horrendously tedious and she was loath to redo it.

Without a backward glance she stepped onto the main dancefloor and made her way across it to the bar. She knew how clients looked at her, how the other girls hated her for it. They didn't realize –how could they when they didn't see- how swiftly the money Sherlock made was spent. The irony of a callgirl with no phone was not lost on her.

She'd arrived at the bar. Already she knew which one would be taking her home –or rather, to his motel room. Third stool from the left, married with two children aged five and eleven, a boy and a girl respectively. Utterly boring, would most likely object to her doing cocaine either before or after intercourse.

Dull. She hadn't even shot up that day, Jim forbade it on days she was working, said it made her look off, though what that meant was lost to her.

So she played her part, pretending to drink and flirt with everyone at the bar, using her skills to drive clients to other girls one by one until hers was the only one left. He shyly invited her to his motel, promising to make it worth her while. Precisely as predicted, and Sherlock couldn't pretend that didn't thrill her.

When he was done with his ridiculous rutting and had paid her, Sherlock went to Jim's and dropped off his percentage before going home with her cut.

A vague sense of responsibility, or rather the fear of another visit from Mycroft, overtook her, driving her to pay her rent before going upstairs and shooting up.

Either it had been too long –unlikely, she'd just taken some earlier in the week- or someone had tampered with the drug because when she finally came down from her high she was outside a clinic in a strange part of London, soaked to the skin by half-melted snow and obviously experiencing the beginning stages of hypothermia.

"You alright, miss?" a warm voice asked. Sherlock whirled, shocked someone had managed to sneak up on her. She tried to speak but she was too cold and the chattering of her teeth got in the words' way.

"Let's get you inside, then. Don't worry, I work here," the voice said, and now Sherlock could focus on its source. A small woman, light blonde hair with piercing blue eyes. Tanned skin, psychosomatic limp aided by an aluminium crutch, recently returned from a tour of duty in either Iraq or Afghanistan. Clearly a doctor, seeing as she calmly led Sherlock through the clinic and into an exam room.

"Sit tight, I'll have some coffee here in a moment," the woman said, flagging down a nurse from the doorway and begging him to fetch some coffee. He agreed quickly and rushed off. "I'm Johanna by the way," she added. "Johanna Watson. And you?"

"Iraq or Afghanistan?" Sherlock managed to force out between her teeth. She accepted the coffee, even though it was black and not at all to her taste. It was warm and that was all that mattered.

"Afghanistan, how did you…?" Johanna asked, handing Sherlock a few packets of sweetener. Sherlock added it to her drink before answering.

"Tanned skin, military bearing in combination with your injured shoulder entails service in the armed forces. Factor in your age and you could only have been in Iraq or Afghanistan," Sherlock rattled off quickly, awaiting the anger that always followed her deductions.

"Brilliant," Johanna proclaimed, shaking her head in amazement.

"Elementary," Sherlock corrected, still expecting the usual anger. When it didn't come, Sherlock was surprised. No one –not even Lestrade- responded to her deductions with awe, much less with the delight obviously dancing across Dr. Watson's face.

The doctor only smiled before sitting forward and taking Sherlock's face in hand. At first the woman struggled but when she realized this was the doctor side, not that of the soldier or woman, touching her, she relaxed.

"How long have you been an addict, Miss…?"

"Thirteen years this past spring," Sherlock answered, deliberately ignoring the unspoken query. Dr. Watson only nodded slightly.

"Alright, then. At least let me see you home safely," she offered, standing and placing her now-empty coffee cup aside.

Sherlock could have refused, but something about the doctor had piqued her curiosity. They stepped outside and flagged down a cab.


	2. We Don't Wanna Go Outside

Sherlock slumped against the windowed door of the cab, already feeling the exhaustion that always followed a high. It was the only time she really slept, those precious few hours when she was coming down but not low enough that she could hear the buzzing of her thoughts, clamoring for attention. Johanna slid in beside her.

"I really do need your address, if not your name," she said firmly, a bit of steel creeping into the doctor's kind tone. Sherlock was too tired to try and sort things out, she just wanted to get home and sleep for a bit before the drug wore completely off.

"The name is Sherlock Holmes, and the address is 221B Baker Street," Sherlock conceded. The doctor made a small humming sound in recognition before instructing the cabbie to begin driving towards Baker Street. Sherlock dozed quietly in her seat until Johanna shook her awake.

"Let's get you upstairs," she grunted, heaving Sherlock's arm over her shoulder and guiding the younger woman indoors, the half-asleep form nearly toppling the doctor on the stairs. When at last they reached the flat proper, Johanna settled Sherlock onto the sofa, carefully removing her overly large coat and scarf before placing an afghan snuggly around the woman.

Johanna stepped quietly into the kitchen, nearly tiptoeing in an attempt to keep from waking the young woman. When the doctor returned with two mugs of tea in hand, Sherlock was awake again, sitting up with the blanket drawn about her shoulders.

"Here, drink," Johanna insisted, handing the woman one mug while sipping from the other herself.

Sherlock only blinked at her, refusing to take the mug and instead nestling deeper under the afghan. Johanna rolled her eyes and placed the second mug aside as she perched in a nearby armchair and sipped her own tea.

Johanna frowned over her mug for a moment before speaking. "Miss Holmes-"

"Sherlock," the woman interrupted. Johanna nodded in acknowledgement and began again.

"Sherlock, then. You live in this flat on your own?" she asked, making small talk before cutting to the heart of the matter. As a doctor, she'd done her job and more, but as a person she had one more end to tie up.

"Don't bother with pleasantries, doctor," Sherlock said crisply, sitting up a bit and her eyes clearing with a touch of a curiosity burning in them. "You've been searching for a flat and flatmate, and you'd like to know if you could move in with me because it will at once suit your purpose and soothe your conscience."

Johanna gave a short nod. Her description made the doctor sound heartless but it was technically all true. Sherlock's eyes were positively flashing now –how had she not noticed their strange silver-gray color earlier?- as they danced over Johanna's face and body, seeing something Johanna couldn't comprehend.

"I play the violin late at night and well into the morning. Often I won't speak for days and my hours are strange," Sherlock announced, sitting up fully so that the afghan fell away revealing the now-crumpled party dress underneath.

"And you're telling me this because…" Johanna trailed off into a question, watching as Sherlock made a _tch_ sound in the back of her throat, clearly annoyed that Johanna wasn't keeping up with what was evidently a brilliant mind.

"Because flatmates should know the worst about each other," Sherlock replied.

"Oh, and the cocaine addiction happened to slip your mind?" Johanna quipped rapidly and without thought. Sherlock didn't react beyond the quirk of an eyebrow, but she seemed rather pleased. "And what makes you think, upon hearing all of these things, that I'd want to be flatmates with you?"

At this, Sherlock gave a smirk, as if to say _how funny it must be inside your little head_. "Because, my good doctor, you're as bored as I am."


	3. Weary-Eyed, Dried Throat

And that is how Johanna found herself at a crime scene, being led under the tape by a more suitably dressed Sherlock. Instead of the party dress of the night before, the strange woman now wore a purple button-down shirt with a black vest and a black pencil skirt. Somehow she was navigating the crime scene in her boots without stumbling once while Johanna tripped every other moment over some tech or other.

* * *

All it had taken was one question from Sherlock the next morning when Johanna awoken to the realization that somehow she'd fallen asleep in the sitting room of her new flat to get her out the door. "You've seen a lot of trouble. Care to see some more?"

Johanna hadn't hesitated. She'd grabbed her coat and cane. "Oh, God, yes."

On the cab ride over Sherlock had explained that she was a consulting detective for Scotland Yard. "When they find themselves even more out of their depths than usual, they call me in," she had stated simply.

The doctor was beginning to understand that there was far more to her new flat mate than met the eye.

* * *

"Sherlock, I thought we agreed you weren't coming for this one," the voice came from behind them but Sherlock didn't turn around even when the grey-haired source caught up with them.

"Lestrade, I thought we agreed that since your boss actually doesn't care, it didn't matter which cases I came on," Sherlock replied without glancing towards the D.I. who was now keeping pace with them.

The man shook his head slightly, as if he were used to dealing with Sherlock acting this way. "Who's this then?" he asked, gesturing towards Johanna.

"I'm Dr. Watson, I'm a colleague," Johanna answered, deciding that word made much more sense than flat mate. The fact that she was living with a half-mad coke addict of a woman wasn't exactly something she wanted to put around.

Sherlock's mouth twitched slightly at that, but not enough for Johanna to understand what it meant. The D.I. pulled a long-suffering look before finally opening the door to the building and ushering them both inside.

"You've got ten minutes, alright? Then you're gone," Lestrade said firmly. "And watch it, Anderson's already up there."

Sherlock made an annoyed sound deep in her throat but charged upstairs to where the crime had evidently occurred. Johanna trailed after, feeling very much out of place and trying to properly maneuver her cane over the cluttered floor. Sherlock didn't offer her help, and neither did the techs, thank God. Nothing frustrated Johanna more than people assuming she needed their assistance. Her cane worked just fine, thank you, and she managed.

When she joined Sherlock in the upstairs room, it was to hear a man's high-pitched voice chattering on about something. "She was a prostitute," he was saying as Johanna slipped inside.

"Anderson, do shut up, you're embarrassing yourself and your girlfriend," Sherlock interrupted. Johanna enjoyed the look of shock and irritation that spread over the tech's face. He was sallow-faced, with dark hair and a vaguely irritating presence about him, and some part of Johanna already disliked the man.

"What do you mean, his girlfriend?" a woman demanded. She seemed higher-up on the food chain; her clothes were a smart pantsuit with demure heels, and she now stood with her hands on her hips, glaring at Sherlock.

Sherlock turned with a smirk already playing across her face. "Donovan, please don't play dumb, it lowers your already low intelligence," she said. Johanna winced at bit at that one; this Donovan woman didn't seem all that bad. "I can see plain as day you've come from the same bed, quite against department regulations, I might add."

Johanna couldn't let her carry on like this, Donovan looked about ready to punch her out. She placed a hand on Sherlock's shoulder. When the woman turned towards her she gave a firm glance and then gestured to the body. Sherlock made an aggravated sound but turned away from Donovan and Anderson and crouched to inspect the body.

It hadn't attracted Johanna's attention at first, simply because of its position. Propped up at the foot of the bed, seated on the floor but leaning on the footboard, it had been hidden at first by the techs that were snapping photos and collecting samples. Sherlock was now examining it, running gloved fingers over the jacket of the dead man, before examining the substances the latex had picked up.

"The wife," Sherlock said brusquely, rising smoothing from her crouch before peeling off the latex gloves and tossing them at a tech, who caught them with a spiteful look in the detective's direction.

Lestrade shouted from downstairs, "Not married!"

Sherlock glared towards the door. "Then the girlfriend! And he certainly was, look at his hand!" Johanna glanced at the hand, but didn't see anything unusual about it. "Clear indents around the fourth knuckle where the ring has been. He worked indoors so he didn't get a tan, therefore the lack of tan lines, but the indentation is still there. _Obviously," here Sherlock raised her voice, "the Yard needs to improve their investigative abilities."_

_"Your time is up," Lestrade replied, still from downstairs. Sherlock groaned like a child being dragged home from a playground. "Now," Lestrade added, "Don't make me come up there."_

_Sherlock immediately started for the stairs, leaving Johanna to trail after slowly. When she finally was outside, Sherlock was gone._

_"She does that," Donovan said from behind her. Johanna turned. "Leaves. She's a freak, just turns up for cases. I don't know how she hears about them, but we certainly don't tell her. Greg lets her traipse around, letting her solve things. And one day, it won't be enough. She gets off on all this, the death and stuff. It won't be enough forever. Someday we're going to be looking at a body, and Sherlock Holmes will be the one who put it there."_


	4. Crumbling Like Pastries

The next case Sherlock brought her along for was only two nights after she'd moved in. Her clothes were still primarily in boxes, leaving only a few spare jumpers for her to wear to work and around town. Sherlock didn't seem to care, just wanted to ensure that Johanna always carried her gun, even though it technically wasn't legal.

Then again, what did Sherlock Holmes care about legality?

They'd pulled up to the crime scene and Sherlock had sped out of the cab like an excited child, racing up to Lestrade and chattering, her hands flapping about her while Johanna quickly paid the cabbie and hobbled in the D.I.'s direction.

By the time Johanna had reached the yellow police tape, Anderson was doing his best impersonation yet of an idiot, muttering something about German under his breath as Sherlock tossed around insults between deductions.

Sherlock stepped over and held up the tape so Johanna could step comfortably under it without having to juggle her cane, but didn't pause in her animated analysis of the scene and the body.

"Come, look, she's written something in her own blood on the pavement," Sherlock said, tugging at Johanna with no regards whatsoever for the woman's disability until she was able to see _rache_, seemingly painted onto the cement before the body of a woman entirely dressed in a pink power suit. Johanna looked down in distaste at the color but in sympathy with the victim.

"She must've spoke German," Anderson interjected when Sherlock paused for breath.

"Don't be an idiot, she was writing Rachel, not _rache_," Sherlock retorted. When Lestrade furrowed his brow in confusion, Sherlock sighed elaborately and explained. "Anderson is about to make the argument that this woman was angry, and so used her dying energy to scrawl the German embodiment of that fury onto the pavement, which is ridiculous. Find this Rachel, it's probably her daughter or something equally mundane." Sherlock seemed to be growing bored, until Lestrade raised an eyebrow.

"Victim's file says she didn't have any living children, just a stillborn about ten years ago," Lestrade said, reading through the information on his smartphone.

Sherlock made a scoffing sound. "Nearly as ridiculous as Anderson, why would she still be upset over that?" she demanded, flipping her hair impatiently out of the way while the crime techs stared in open horror at her.

Johanna tapped her shoulder. "Bit not good," she muttered, quietly enough that only Sherlock could hear. The detective grimaced, but made a jerking motion with her head that might have been an apology.

"I meant, why would that be so worth the energy? Why not the name of her killer?" Sherlock grumbled.

"Oh, I dunno, Sherlock. A woman thinking of her daughter in her dying moments just doesn't make sense," Johanna snapped angrily, trying to get her flatmate to see how callous she was behaving.

"If you were dying, and you knew you only had moments left, what would _your_ last thoughts be?" Sherlock clearly meant it to be rhetorical, she was standing far too close to Johanna for comfort, a fact hampered by the fact that she wasn't really looking at the doctor, but rather at some fixed point in her own mind.

"Dear God let me live," Johanna answered lowly.

"Be a little creative, Johanna, please," Sherlock responded, oblivious to the fact that now each person at the scene was riveted on the pair of women.

"I don't have to be," Johanna replied. It took Sherlock a moment, but Johanna could see the implication sinking in, and perhaps even a flash of guilt and regret in the detective's eyes, though the last may have been fancy.

Johanna turned abruptly to face the body. "It didn't rain last night, why is her coat all wet?"

At that, Sherlock launched into a series of deductions too complex for Johanna to completely follow, but amazing enough to be lauded while the Yarders scribbled in their notebooks. Sherlock gave them some information, and then stepped to the kerb and hailed a cab. This time, Johanna was quick enough to jump in with her.

"Now comes the fun part," Sherlock said with a grin. Johanna was beginning to know that grin. It almost never ended well for either of them. The same grin had appeared the night prior, just before a loud explosion had sounded through the flat and smoke alarm went off, terrifying their poor landlady, Mrs. Hudson, and startling Johanna.

But the doctor refused to comment, only watched as Sherlock had the cab circle the block a bit until the Yarders had left, and then followed as Sherlock left the cab at exactly the same spot they'd been less than twenty minutes prior. Now the body was gone, and the scene was cleared so that the sidewalk could function again.

Sherlock led Johanna into the alley behind where the body had been, and successively up the fire escape, which was absolute hell on Johanna's leg. After crouching on the metal grating for a few minutes Johanna finally had to ask.

"What precisely are we waiting for?" Johanna whispered, unsure of why she felt the need to be as quiet as possible. Perhaps something in Sherlock's intensely focused face was hushing her mind.

"For the killer, of course," Sherlock hissed back, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Johanna was shocked. She couldn't be serious. "I am most assuredly serious. The woman had a mobile in her pocket; I nicked it so I could text the last number called. After that it's simply a matter of waiting for the killer to panic and arrive here to see what he forgot."

"And what, pray tell, did he forget?" Johanna demanded, becoming more and more concerned by the moment.

"This." Sherlock grinned, pulling a bloody knife encased in an evidence bag from her coat pocket. Leave it to the mad detective to nick vital evidence and get away with it. Johanna was at a loss for words, and decided to simply wait until this alleged murderer showed up before pulverizing her flatmate.

It took a half an hour for the killer to arrive, and Sherlock immediately jumped from the metal balcony, with no evident concern for basic laws of gravity as she dropped neatly into a crouch before popping up and sprinting after the man. He'd spotted them both and begun to take off.

Johanna reacted on instinct, leaping down the ladder and landing on the cement, albeit with less panache than Sherlock had managed only seconds before her. She went in the opposite direction of Sherlock, knowing she'd be able to cut off the suspect from the other side. When the shadow rounded the corner Johanna flew at it and pinned it solidly against the ground. While the man thrashed and shouted obscenities, Johanna wrestled his arms behind him and shoved his face against the pavement.

When Sherlock arrived moments later, out of breath and tousled, she was beaming. Her color was high for once, and she looked very nearly human. "Johanna," she said. "You forgot your cane."


	5. Just Under the Upper Hand

Jim scowled at his mobile. _Sherlock not shown up for days. –SM_ His prime bait, the girl who brought in the most money and the most clients, had vanished from his network.

It didn't bother him too much; with just one text he could have her back at the club. But that was too simple. She'd just wander off again, off to whatever had distracted her…

He placed a hand against his mouth, his free fingers drumming a disjointed rhythm on the arm of his chair. Sherlock was familiar to him, she craved anything new, anything she deemed exciting. The only way for her to ever silence her mind was through her drugs, and the only way for her to finance the habit was through working for him. She was no longer working for him, and no other man would dare try to take her into his own web for fear of Jim's retaliation. Therefore, she was no longer working. If she wasn't working, she wasn't using. If she wasn't using, surely her mind would have snapped and Jim would have heard about it. Unless…

Unless something new and interesting had come into her life.

_Oh Sherly,_ Jim smirked to himself. _Not another pet._ You'd think what had happened with Victoria would've warned her off trying to leave Jim.

"Seb," he shouted. "Sherly's got another one!"

Sebastian, though he'd texted only minutes earlier, stepped into the room and stood at attention in front of Jim. "And I'm to take care of it, boss?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

"Not yet," Jim drawled out, playing with his phone absently before shooting off a text message. "Let's give her a chance to see the error of her ways." Seb gave a nod and started to leave before Jim's voice made him freeze. "But you may want to encourage her decision."

At this, Seb gave a wicked grin and went for the door. "_Alive_," Jim reminded as Seb left.

* * *

Johanna stumbled into the flat, feeling oddly disconnected from her body. Sherlock immediately leapt up from the sofa, dressing gown flapping absurdly around her as she rushed to prop up the doctor.

"Sherlock, I'm fine, I just got jumped," Johanna said, or tried to say. What actually came out was so much garbled nonsense. Her mouth was too filled with blood to speak clearly, and Johanna had no intention of swallowing the coppery fluid. The younger woman completely ignored her protests and half-dragged her into the loo, forcing her to spit the blood into the sink while the dark-haired woman ran about the flat gathering first aid supplies from the red container they came in.

With a quick efficiency that said she'd performed the actions before, Sherlock set Johanna up on the sink's edge and began to clean the cuts across her face, being careful around the large black eye and split lip already swelling with blood.

"Shirt, off, and don't argue, I can see you're injured there as well," Sherlock snapped, her voice even sharper than usual. Johanna complied. She hadn't been about to argue; three weeks of living with this mad detective was enough to convince her that modesty was a lost cause.

To Sherlock's credit, she didn't even blink at the scarring that crisscrossed Johanna's abdomen, or the large sunburst of damaged tissue on her shoulder. Instead, clinical fingers gently poked and prodded at ribs and forming bruises, assessing the damage.

"These will need stitches," Sherlock finally murmured, tracing her fingers through the air just above the cuts on Johanna's forehead and forearms, "but it doesn't seem like anything's broken."

"Don't take me to the A&E," Johanna begged, surprising herself both with her desperation and her coherency.

Sherlock was taken aback. "Why not?" she demanded, already moving for gauze to staunch the fresh bleeding on Johanna's forehead.

"I- I mean, you know how to stitch just as well as anyone there," Johanna dodged, not wanting to reveal her issues with emergency rooms. Sherlock's eyes narrowed, but she obviously decided it wasn't important as she didn't press the issue, and instead opted to grab the sutures and such from the red case. Johanna had added much of her own things to the kit, making it closer to an army medical kit than the traditional first aid kit.

Sherlock began stitching, and Johanna worked to keep from wincing. She'd experienced worse pain in her life; she'd been shot and hauled herself and another soldier for nearly a mile while wounded, surely she could handle a few stitches without painkillers.

Once they were in, Johanna turned to examine her flatmate's work. She had to admit, Sherlock's stitches were tidier than most med students'.

"My mother taught me how to sew. I doubt this is what she had in mind when I learned the skill," Sherlock revealed. Johanna turned in surprise. This was the first she'd heard about Sherlock's family or past, outside of vague references to past cases and some mutterings about a meddlesome big brother, though in retrospect it might've been about Big Brother.

There was silence for a moment, while Johanna tried to decipher the expression on Sherlock's face. The detective's normally fiery blue-green eyes were dim and lackluster. This should have been alarming to Johanna, since it could have signaled a relapse, but after extricating a deal that if Sherlock were to go back to cocaine or the clubs Johanna would not only move out but send a tip to Lestrade, Johanna was confident that Sherlock would find a different release for her boredom.

Suddenly Sherlock was moving into Johanna's space until their faces inches apart, breathing each other's air. "Jo, you've got to be more careful," Sherlock whispered, her voice and face vulnerable and childlike.

Johanna was caught off guard by the nickname. Surely someone like Sherlock was above terms of endearment. But Sherlock looked so open, and even… a little scared. Johanna couldn't bring herself to comment. "I will," she promised brashly.

They stood there for a moment, too close together as one of them bled before Jo couldn't take it any longer. "Sherlock… who were the men who attacked me?" she asked as gently as she could. "They said something about you and someone named Victoria when they thought I was unconscious."

Sherlock swallowed and stepped back, leaving Jo feeling abruptly cold and a bit lightheaded. "You know what I used to do," Sherlock started, and Jo nodded. She'd caught Sherlock coming in one night, a little worse for wear with her dress shredded. Sherlock had explained that a client had gotten overenthusiastic, and that was when they had struck the deal to keep Sherlock sober and safe.

"Well… the man who is… in charge, both of the drugs and the girls. He doesn't share well at all. A few years ago, when I was still at Uni, I became… involved with a girl named Victoria. She wanted me to get help, to get out of Jim's ring and to go to rehab. Apparently, when I'd refused, she'd gone to Jim and threatened to turn him in to Scotland Yard if he didn't cut me loose." Sherlock paused, collecting herself and smoothing her face back into a cool mask.

"And?" Jo prodded.

"I found her body the next morning," Sherlock said bluntly. Jo froze, and Sherlock immediately tried to shift the focus. "What exactly happened tonight, Jo? Who attacked you, when and where?"

The questions were welcome enough, as Jo's head was reeling from the revelations of the night. "I was leaving the surgery, and I thought I'd try walking a bit since it was so nice out. They must've been waiting for me, three men, bigger than me all of them. They surrounded me and took me down. I knew I couldn't take all three of them –I didn't have my gun, I never do at the surgery- so I just pretended to fall unconscious. When they were done beating me, they muttered something about it being twice as easy as Victoria, and that maybe Sherlock would get the message this time. Then they left." Sherlock's face went even paler than usual the longer Jo spoke, but now the story was spilling out of her mouth and she was helpless to stop the tide of words. "It took me a bit to get it together, and I had to take the Tube because none of the cabs would take me, and I think I got lost a bit, but I managed to make it home."

Sherlock nodded curtly, as if it all made sense to her before leaving the loo. Jo followed, and saw that Sherlock was pulling on her ridiculous overcoat and knotting her scarf about her neck despite the warming weather.

"Where are you going, Sherlock?" Jo demanded, and when the detective didn't answer, Jo's fears were concerned. "Oh no, you are _not_ going after this man. Not alone, not without me."

"Stay here, Jo. You're injured. Just stay put and stay safe," Sherlock ordered, sweeping out of the flat.

Jo paid about as much attention to Sherlock's instructions as Sherlock paid to Lestrade's laws, and only paused to grab her gun before immediately following her detective out of the flat.


	6. The Worst Things in Life Come Free

"I believe I told you to stay in the flat," Sherlock muttered as she hailed down a taxi. Jo ignored her for a moment as they slid into the backseat. She checked to make sure the safety was on, and then stuck the pistol into her waistband. Really, she needed to buy a holster for it.

"And I believe you're going need some firepower behind you," Jo answered. Sherlock had a strange light in her face; one that was out for blood, and Jo wasn't going to let her charge into whatever she was doing with Jo watching her back.

Sherlock's mouth quirked a bit, but she kept her arms crossed over her chest like a petulant child as the she slipped an address that Jo didn't know to the cabbie. They drove for nearly forty minutes, taking a circuitous route before pulling up in front of a club.

Jo frowned. "Sherlock," she murmured warningly, moving to take her gun from her waist. Sherlock held up a hand in a placating gesture.

"Trust me, Jo. Just this once," Sherlock said with a sad smile. Jo nodded but kept her hand ready in case she needed to go for her gun. "Jim lives about a block away, we should be able to walk from here." And they were off, hustling forward along the sidewalk, Sherlock rushing headlong without a thought to her surroundings and Jo scanning the people that passed them for potential threats.

Sherlock stopped abruptly at a building. "You may wish to remove the safety, Jo," she said simply, striding up to the door and knocking briskly. The door swung open, revealing a man with sandy hair and a smart military attitude. "Seb, I believe Jim is expecting us," Sherlock said, stepping past the man and into the house. Jo kept her face cool and collected, falling back on military training to step past this obvious hostile in order to follow Sherlock into the sitting room.

The sitting room was overdone in its simplicity. Everything was a black and white, with smooth, clean lines and sharp angles. Sherlock immediately stepped towards the fireplace, standing with her back to the flames and facing the chair at the center of the room. Jo curved around, careful to keep her back to the wall and her hand on her gun, until she was able to see who sat in the chair.

He was… younger than she'd expected. He didn't look more than thirty, in his crisp suit and tie. In his left hand he held a cup of tea, and with his right he drummed nonsense onto the arm of his chair. A wide grin was spreading across his mouth, but it didn't touch his eyes.

"Sherly," he crooned, and it took Jo a moment to realize he meant Sherlock. "You've been a terribly bad girl." He'd barely spoken more than a half dozen words and already Jo wanted to shoot him for the reaction he'd caused in Sherlock. She'd never seemed more… inhuman than she did in that moment, as she shut herself down to try and deal with Jim.

"Jim. I regret to inform you that I won't be returning to your service," Sherlock said carefully, weighing each word on her tongue. It was strange to watch her being careful, to see what she became when she genuinely thought things through instead of allowing her mind to carry her onwards to the next challenge.

Frankly, it was terrifying as hell. She turned into some cold, vengeful woman, looking as if she could easily play her violin as Rome burned beneath her. Jo had never thoroughly hated someone before, but now she found her entire self consumed with absolute loathing for the man that sat so coolly on his throne while Sherlock fell apart.

"Why don't you let our pets talk outside, and we'll discuss your return in here while they chat?" Jim offered, his smile turning into a full-blown smirk. Jo's anger was boiling, and she had her gun in her hand, ready to whip up and fire the moment Sherlock gave the signal.

And surely she would, given time. Jo could see the tiny signs of the detective's anger, the mild tightening in her jaw and the way her legs tensed as if she were getting ready to run.

"I seriously doubt your man would survive that conversation," Sherlock said with an alarmingly deadened voice. There was no frustration, no hint of emotion in the way she spoke, and the syllables were flat without even a sarcastic inflection. They revealed absolutely nothing.

"Such faith in your pet. Then again, she's been _soooo_ loyal to you. Do you even know?" Jim said with a playful grin. Sherlock's jaw clenched even tighter than before.

"Know what?" Sherlock asked, and there was the slightest tremor in her voice. Judging by the gleeful look on Jim's face, this was the intended result.

"_Oohh_. Jo, you awful girl, you didn't _tell_ her?" Jim's voice was half-shrieking now with excitement. Jo narrowed her eyes at him, not wanting him to go there, but it was too late now to stop him.

Sherlock's voice was showing definite signs of a storm on the horizon. "_What_," she bit out, "Hasn't she told me?"

Jim only gave an indulgent smile. "Oh, no no _no_, Sherly, I wouldn't _dream_ of being the root of trouble in paradise," he said in a sing-song voice. "I couldn't _possibly_ be the cause of strife for the happy couple." Sherlock opened her mouth to speak, but Jim interrupted her, taking a sip of his tea. "On your way, honey. I'll see you in the club tomorrow night."

At first Sherlock started towards Jim, but Jo placed a hand on Sherlock's forearm, holding her back and moving towards the door. Anger was still vibrating through Jo's smaller frame, but she had the presence of mind to keep an eye on Seb while she dragged Sherlock out of the building and into the street.

They hadn't even made it to the end of the street before Sherlock whirled on Jo, shoving her to the wall and bringing her face down to Jo's level, anger clearly etched on her face.

"What was he talking about?" Sherlock demanded. Her voice wasn't raised; it was deadly low and smooth. Somehow that was worse than if she'd been yelling. This lethal calm felt far too much like the silence that falls before a storm.

Jo swallowed. She knew she could push Sherlock away if she wanted to; the former addict wasn't very strong, and Jo still maintained the muscular definition earned in the army. Yet, she didn't twitch a single muscle towards the moves she knew would reverse the situation.

Instead, she allowed Sherlock to keep her pinned, to press an arm against her neck with the threat of pressure if an answer wasn't satisfactorily given. Her heart hammered in her throat, but not from anything resembling fear. Sherlock's eyes were flashing blue-grey, as alive and furious as Jo had ever seen her. She was… beautiful.

_Not going there, Jo,_ she warned herself. _Now is not the time,._

_" Tell me," Sherlock hissed. Jo tried to take a steadying breath, and felt her airway constrict a bit as Sherlock increased the pressure on her throat. Jo reached up and pushed away her arm so she could breath._

_"I need to breathe," Jo said by way of explanation. Sherlock gave a short nod, just a jerk of her chin really, stepping back a bit but still hovering close. Now she was waiting, with her I'm-being-so-patient-look-Jo face plastered on._

_A few deep breaths later, Sherlock was getting impatient. Jo finally began to speak, thankfully, or Sherlock might have actually snapped in half from anxiety. "About a week after we- moved in, together," Jo began, hesitating and trying to find a way to phrase it that didn't jar in her ear. "I was contacted by a man. I wasn't going to mention it to you, I'd assumed it was something to do with a case…"_

_" The point, Jo," Sherlock growled._

_"Well, he wanted me to divert your cases, offered to pay. Don't look at me like that, I didn't say anything. I told him to pop off," Jo admitted. She'd never wanted to tell Sherlock about it, terrified it stank of sentiment, and that it would drive the detective away._

_Judging by her face, Jo had been right._


	7. Day's End

Sherlock was… shocked. She hated the word, hated the idea, and yet, there she stood, and it was the only word that would do justice to the strange sensation rushing through her bones. That someone would show such dedication to her at all, let alone after only knowing her a week, was nothing short of extraordinary.

This former soldier –for she was still more of a soldier than she was a doctor, despite what she herself thought- had allowed the detective to pin her to the wall, clearly making a threat, without batting an eye. Not because she wasn't afraid, but because she trusted Sherlock.

_Sentiment, ridiculous. Delete,_ she thought quickly, but the feeling wouldn't go away, and when she looked down all she could see was the straightforward honesty of Jo's face. There was no hiding from that woman, not when she had eyes like that, eyes that saw straight through Sherlock's coarse past and right to the heart of her, the heart she denied ever possessing.

_A person could drown in those eyes._ Sherlock was startled by the thought; it was very nearly waxing poetic. It occurred to her that she had been standing, pressing Jo into a brick wall only a block from Jim's house, staring into her soldier's face for what would be considered by most to be an inordinate amount of time. But Jo showed no signs of discomfort. In fact…

_Enlarged pupils, elevated respiration, increase of pulse and- there. A flickering glance down towards lips, indicative of attraction._ Sherlock felt a modicum of pride at having caught things so quickly, before panic set in.

She'd thought she'd made her views on relationships abundantly clear –they were for the weak, for those who didn't have the Work. So why did she find herself leaning in?

Thankfully she caught herself, and stepped back quickly. Sherlock ignored the sudden cold feeling spreading through her chest and stepped to the street and hailed a cab. Jo followed her silently, climbing into the cab after her and allowing her some quiet to think in.

Yet she found her mind circling back to Jo's face, Jo's eyes, Jo's grin. There was a problem with Jim, but she couldn't focus on it in that moment. All she could think about was how near Jo had been to her, how close they had been. It wasn't the first time Sherlock had ignored Jo's personal space, but it felt different somehow. This time, the image of Jo's surprise was firmly fixed in Sherlock's mind's eye, obscuring everything else.

"Sherlock? Sherlock, we're home." Jo's voice sounded in her ears as if from a distance. Slowly Sherlock returned to the present, her eyes focusing on Jo's face as it hovered over her, silhouetted against the yellow streetlights. Sherlock gave a distant nod, not really feeling herself move until she was climbing the stairs to their flat.

When Jo stepped in front of her to unlock the door, Sherlock became suddenly and terrifyingly aware of her body, of every part of her lighting up in response to Jo's presence. This was ridiculous, this biological transport reaction. Yet, here her control was failing her, making her step closer to Jo as the soldier hung up her jacket.

She squeaked slightly when she turned around and saw a figure looming over her, but relaxed when she saw it was Sherlock who stood only a breath away. "Sherlock, remind me to talk to you about sneaking up on people," Jo commented with a shake of her head. Her voice was nonchalant, but Sherlock could see Jo's pulse hammering in her throat, and the way her breath caught slightly on each inhalation.

Sherlock knew exactly how much control she had over herself, prized that knowledge. She also knew precisely how much she wanted Jo, and it had now reached the point where the latter surpassed the former. Without conscious permission, her body moved forward, pressing Jo gently back to the wall.

Once again, Jo's eyes widened in curiosity, wondering what it was Sherlock was up to this time. Something in the detective's eyes must have given her away, because Jo's breathing picked up once again, even faster than before, but not for long. A moment after Sherlock registered this change of pace, she leaned down and captured Jo's mouth with her own.

_Why didn't we do this earlier?_ Sherlock thought to herself. Jo's mouth was soft, softer than she'd have thought anything could be, and tasted faintly of tea and something else indescribably sweet and dark. Jo was making a small gasping noise that Sherlock was swallowing up like air, to the point that neither of them was getting any actual air into their lungs. Suddenly, Jo surged forward, pushing Sherlock across the entryway until her back hit the wall, taking control of the kiss.

Jo slid her mouth down Sherlock's throat, tracing out patterns with her tongue. The detective sighed gently, strangely happy to relinquish control for once. When Jo's lips reached the collar of her shirt, she obligingly unbuttoned it and allowed Jo to help her out of it and her coat in one fell movement.

Her hands worked quickly to divest Jo of her jumper and belt, only letting her go to toe off her boots, giving Sherlock the chance to remove her own. Jo dragged her close for another kiss, skin brushing together in a way that made Sherlock's breath catch in her throat.

"Bed, now," Sherlock managed to gasp, taking Jo by the belt loop and dragging her down the hall to the main bedroom. Jo had taken the upstairs one when she'd moved in, but it was far too far away to work for either of them. They stumbled backwards through the doorway, and fell onto the bed with limbs tangled together.

Sherlock froze, uncertain of how to proceed. The last time she'd done something like this –something that she _wanted_- had been years ago, when she was still at Uni.

"Don't," Jo murmured, pressing warm kisses to her neck and shoulders, pushing the strap of her bra down her arm. "Don't think."

For once in her life, Sherlock followed directions.


	8. An Angel Will Die

_Come immediately if convenient. If inconvenient, come anyway. –SH_ And then an address, about two hours away near the seashore.

Jo rolled onto her back again, hissing as the cool morning air played across her bare skin. She felt pleasantly sore, aching all over and now chilled with gooseflesh spreading over her body. Her hair was tumbling into her face again, and she pushed it away with irritation.

Sherlock _would_ leave her in bed the morning after, only to text and wake her up. Jo groaned, pushing the blankets away from her in one smooth motion to get the immediate chill over with. At first she didn't want to move, but as her phone buzzed again –Sherlock demanding her presence, no doubt- she rolled out of bed and left Sherlock's room for her own.

She pulled on jeans and a jumper, yanked on boots while she snagged her jacket and was out the door not five minutes after the first text had come through. The cab dropped her off at the train station, and from there she caught the first train out to Broadstairs. She sent quick texts to Sherlock that went unanswered, updating the detective on her status. Soon she was off the train and hailing a cab for Joss Bay.

The taxi ride afforded her time to think over the events of last night. The night before had been remarkable, but there was no pretending anything could come of it. Sherlock didn't do things like that, not with any sort of sentimentality. She'd just been stressed, and Jo had been an easy way to blow off steam. Jo knew it, even though Sherlock hadn't said a word about it the night before.

When she got out of the taxi at the beach, she was so wrapped in her own thoughts she didn't hear her phone ring at first. Around the third ring she realized it was going off. _Sherlock_ read the caller ID.

"Impatient prat," Jo muttered as she accepted the call. "Yes, Sherlock, I'm here right now," she began, but Sherlock interrupted her.

"Go back the way you came, Jo," Sherlock ordered. Jo froze in confusion for a moment, but followed the order, walking away from the chalk cliffs until she could see the top edge of them. "That's far enough, now look up."

Before she even looked up, Jo knew what she'd see. Sherlock stood at the edge of the cliff, her hair loose and blowing out behind her in a dark curtain. Her coat billowed along with the curls, making her look like some sort of dark angel, waiting to swoop down on the waves.

"Sherlock, don't-"

"Please, Jo, don't make this harder. Don't worry, I'll be with you after. This world, Jo… it's too much. Too much for me, and not enough. Maybe after it will be better, somehow, and I'll be better. _We'll_ be better after."

"So help me, Sherlock Holmes, if you jump-"

"It's not an if, Jo. It never was. It was just a matter of _when_." Sherlock's voice was the most vulnerable Jo had ever heard it. "It's snowing again, Jo," Sherlock remarked. Jo blinked away tears she didn't know had formed in her eyes so she could see. It was snowing, the flakes building white castles on Sherlock's dark coat that Jo could see even from this distance.

"It was snowing when we met," Jo choked out.

Sherlock gave a small laugh; it sounded dry and terrified, but when Jo stepped forward to try and do something, Sherlock reprimanded her. "Don't come closer, Jo. Stay where you are." Her voice lightened again, becoming almost casual. "If it hadn't been snowing, you never would've dragged me into the clinic."

"W-well you were nearly blue," Jo said, forcing a watery chuckle. She realized now that Sherlock was right. There was no way for her to be stopped. Jo was going to have to talk to her, and then watch her jump. "Why are you doing this?" she demanded.

"Trust me," was Sherlock's only answer. That seemed to be all she had to say, the figure atop the cliffs flipped her hair to the side as if to get it out of her face before shifting even closer to the edge. "Don't worry about me, Jo. Falling's just like flying, but with a more permanent destination." She lifted a foot out into the air. "Goodbye, Jo."

She took the step.

* * *

A scream ripped out of Jo's mouth, borne from terror and pain, as she rushed forward, overcome with some mad idea that if she just got there fast enough, she could catch Sherlock, and the detective would laugh over the experiment and things would be fine.

Sherlock fell in almost slow motion, her coat spreading behind her like wings as she hurtled towards the water. Jo heard the sickening splash as she hit the ocean, but she couldn't see through her own tears.

_Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock Sherlock_. It took someone shaking her firmly by the arm to discover that the sound of Sherlock's name was coming from her own mouth.

She blacked out.

* * *

"Johanna, come on, up you get," Greg said, his voice finally making sense in her ears. She didn't know how long he'd been talking to her, trying to get her up from where she knelt on the sand, but she had the impression it had been a long while.

She allowed the detective inspector to lead her away from the place of impact, didn't question how he'd gotten there, let him put her in a cab and see her home, and it wasn't until he left that Jo allowed herself to break down.

A knock sounded at the door, cutting through Jo's muffled sobs. Jo stood on shaky legs, scrubbing roughly at her eyes with the back of her hands before opening the door. Mrs. Hudson stood on the other side, looking at her with a mixture of fear and sadness.

"Johanna… what's happened? Greg wouldn't say, said he didn't really know yet. Is- is something wrong with Sherlock?" Mrs. Hudson stammered. She already knew the answer; she had to be able to see it written across Jo's face. "I'll go put on some tea," she said, her voice cracking as she turned and went down to her own flat.

Jo let her go. All she wanted at that point was to go into Sherlock's room, hide under the blankets, and ignore the smell of sea air still clinging to her hair and clothes. Act like she'd just woken up, and that Sherlock was in the shower, about to come out and lay down next to her on the sheets.

But that wasn't possible. Wasn't possible because she'd seen Sherlock, arms and legs splayed out on the pavement with those remarkable eyes blank and empty. And no amount of pretending was going to change it.


	9. Epilogue: Hoping for a Better Life

Jo stared out at the water from the cliffs. Most people would be terrified to go to the seashore after what happened, but Jo craved the feeling of standing where Sherlock had last planted her feet before trying to fly. It comforted her, somehow, brought her closer to her detective. It'd been three years, and Jo still couldn't find it in herself to keep away from the ocean. On days like today, when the wind was high and whipped her scarf around her neck, she was so tempted to follow Sherlock, to see whether they really would meet again, like she'd insisted.

It was funny. Never in a million years would Jo have suspected Sherlock of being remotely religious, yet the one thing Sherlock had repeated over and over in their final conversation was the idea of meeting again. After, she'd kept saying. I'll be with you after. But then she'd jumped, surrendered herself to waves. Jo had tried to leap in after her, but the current had proved too strong, and Jo had proved too weak.

She'd moved here after the second year. That was how she marked time now, not in years since Christ, but in years since Sherlock. She guessed that made her sacrilegious, but she couldn't give less of a damn. Jo had come here hoping to find closure, or rather, hoping to find Sherlock. London had proven too close, too familiar.

Greg had argued with her over staying in 221B, and he had turned out to be right. Of course, he hadn't intended for Jo to move to Joss Bay, but he didn't exactly know where she'd gotten to. Only Mrs. Hudson knew Jo's current address, and she'd sworn not to tell another living soul.

So Jo had moved here, to this little surfing town that during the correct season was filled with surfers. The day Sherlock fell was during the height of the season; it was only due to the impending snow that the beach had been as empty as it was.

She tapped her cane against her foot. It had been infuriating, admitting she needed the aluminium cane again after going without it for so long. She knew Sherlock would never let her hear the end of it if she knew… but she was rather past being able to do something about it now, wasn't she?

Jo went to the very edge, the way she did each year, and sat down, her legs stretched out into nothingness with the sea crashing below her. She took a shaking breath.

"Why'd you have to go and do it? I know it was hard, and that thing with Jim shook you up, but… I mean… wasn't I enough to keep you? Just for a little while longer at least? Until you got bored with me and moved on, we could've been happy. And I wouldn't have complained when you got bored. But to just check out like that… It can't be right. It just can't. Just come back, all right, Sherly? Don't be dead. Just one more miracle, for me. " she asked, her voice clogging up at the end with tears. She pulled herself back from the edge, using the crutch to help her down the declining path.

"If you ever call me Sherly again, I will personally push you from that cliff," a familiar voice hissed in her ear.


End file.
